Retrieval-induced forgetting is associated with increased positivity when imagining the future

Abstract

People often think of themselves and their experiences in a more positive light than is objectively justified. Inhibitory control processes may promote this positivity bias by modulating the accessibility of negative thoughts and episodes from the past, which then limits their influence in the construction of imagined future events. We tested this hypothesis by investigating the correlation between retrieval-induced forgetting and the extent to which individuals imagine positive and negative episodic future events. First, we measured performance on a task requiring participants to imagine personal episodic events (either positive or negative), and then we correlated that measure with retrieval-induced forgetting. As predicted, individuals who exhibited higher levels of retrieval-induced forgetting imagined fewer negative episodic future events than did individuals who exhibited lower levels of retrieval-induced forgetting. This finding provides new insight into the possible role of retrieval-induced forgetting in autobiographical memory.

Keywords:

• Episodic future thinking
• Positivity bias
• Retrieval-induced forgetting
• Inhibition
• Autobiographical memory

Notes

¹Spearman's rho is less susceptible to the influence of outliers than Pearson's r because it is calculated using rank order instead of actual scores. To further control for the influence of outliers we re-ran the regression analysis after removing subjects who exhibited retrieval-induced forgetting scores or episodic future thinking scores that deviated from the mean in a given condition by more than three standard deviations (only one subject in the negative condition needed to be removed). The results of this analysis mirrored those of the full analysis. Specifically, the complete model was significant, F(3, 127) = 3.87, p = .01, R² = .08, and the interaction term explained significant variance above and beyond that explained by valence and retrieval-induced forgetting alone, F(1, 127) = 5.10, p = .03, ΔR² = .04.